Is Microsoft integrating Windows Phone and Windows? You’d hope so

Much of the work has already been done, shipped as Windows Phone 8.

A well-connected but regularly erroneous publication is reporting that Microsoft is developing Windows Blue as a project that will merge desktop Windows with Windows Phone.

So far, so good: Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 already share lots of bits and pieces. The kernel is the same across both platforms, big chunks of code like Direct3D and .NET are identical, and there are some pieces of the new WinRT API also common to both.

There's also been a leaked, new Windows build that adds onto Windows 8 but makes multitasking more versatile, and makes the touch-first, Metro environment more expansive. Later builds contain "Windows 8.1" branding, which would make sense for a minor release that's generally expected to ship late this year.

Here's where the Digitimes rumor gets interesting. The prevailing assumption is that these two things are one and the same; that Windows Blue, which will bring phone, desktop, and tablet together, and Windows 8.1, are the same thing. In this world, Blue is simply a codename for 8.1.

Digitimes says that this is not, in fact, the case. It reports that Blue is an "independent project" with its own developer team, and that the release due this year is "another operating system."

Long-time Microsoft-watcher Paul Thurrott—also well-connected—has written that the Digitimes report is wishful thinking and that Microsoft has no plans to merge the two. Thurrott believes Windows Blue is just the 8.1 release. He also notes that Windows Phone 8 is already "merged" insofar as it shares a kernel, security, networking, "and many other features."

It's possible that both parties are, more or less, correct. With Windows Phone using many of the same core parts as Windows 8, it wouldn't be at all surprising if it went on to pick up more and more of Windows 8's capabilities as time goes on.

There doesn't need to be an explicit, single-purpose project to merge the two, because as Thurrott points out, the fundamental elements of that merger have already taken place. The Windows Phone 8 team has a menu of functionality that it can take from Windows 8. As it expands the capabilities of the smartphone platform, it's likely that it'll pick up more and more of those Windows 8 components.

The noise at this point about a Windows 8 update that will arrive some time later this year—Digitimes suggests October, which would feel about right—is too hard to ignore. The Windows 8.1 builds that people have seen appear to be working toward this outcome.

This version is probably being developed under the "Blue" codename. Thurrott says that a bunch of other products have their own "Blue" code names, too, with Microsoft intending to release a whole range of "Blue" products. He even says that Windows Phone has its own "Blue."

As for an explicit project to merge the two? Digitimes says there is one. Thurrott says there isn't. I say there has to be, in some form or another, and would be worried if there weren't. The entire premise of Windows Phone 8 was that it brought Microsoft's Windows NT investment to the phone platform. That investment only begins to have value if Microsoft unifies; if Microsoft offers developers the same environment and tooling across phone and tablet, and if the company gives users the same interface and conventions across the phone and tablet.

This doesn't mean that at some point in the future you'll be able to download a copy of Windows 10 and just install it to your phone. But it does mean that the differences, both for developers and users, will be diminished with each new version. There will still be some differences, due if nothing else to the wildly different screen sizes that the various operating systems must support. But when it makes sense to do things the same way, they will be done the same way.

If Microsoft doesn't have a team working to ensure the two products undergo a convergent evolution where it makes sense and eliminate gratuitous differences, one struggles to see how the company's partial unification makes any sense.

"...If Microsoft doesn't have a team working to ensure the two products undergo a convergent evolution where it makes sense and eliminate gratuitous differences, one struggles to see how the company's partial unification makes any sense..." Author, you hit the nail on the head here. That is so typically Microsoft. Has happened to Microsoft dozens of times over the years. Some things never change...

It really sounds to me like they are arguing semantics. Merged at what level or from what perspective?

MS Internal Developer- Single code base that can be compiled to W8, W8Phone and WinRT? Might already be there or may be there soon. Don't really know and no one outside of MS would know or care.

MS External Developer- Well for Win RT/phone they already are or should be pretty close. I don't expect to ever see "standard" windows apps running on a Windows phone but I wouldn't be surprised to see more functionality added to the Win RT api to allow more functionality on Win RT tablets and Windows 8 phones.

From a customer perspective- I guess this really depends on how well the Win RT apps end up doing. If you can end up buying all the apps you are interested from the app store for your Windows Desktop/laptop, your Win RT tablet and your Windows phone (xBox Live too if you want to be really ambitious) then I guess you might eventually get there but I don't think that will be any time soon. There are just too many applications available for Windows to think that they could ever all be ported to the Win RT API.

I could eventually see being able to buy really super angry birds from the windows store and get it on your PC, Tablet, Phone and xbox but I think it will really be largely limited to things build for the tablets/phones that happens to also run on your PC and xbox rather than everything available on your PC making it to all the other areas.

I'm with Peter. It's not like the two platforms are so different in the first place, so MS is bound to have some folks with feet in both worlds keeping development in both areas apace.

It's also not purely a semantic argument. As similar as the platforms may be, the talent developing each isn't likely to cross-over a great deal. It's no doubt very much two teams and two products. The difference between "merging" and "building cooperatively" is exactly this; two projects drawing from a common pool of resources.

From each world's perspective, I can imagine it feels a lot like being sucked up into something else, and thereby merging two platforms, so I imagine industry sources are liable to give that impression. From a broader, upper-management and strategy perspective though, it's two blades on the same mower.

Now, of course, this is all pretty much how Apple manages OS X and iOS; same underpinnings, with some horse-trading at the upper levels of the stack. Even if the bulk of the work goes into both products, the products are hardly similar enough to call them "merged."

The best thing Microsoft could do for its users, whether consumers, IT professionals or developers is to fix the massive confusion they have created merging two incompatible Windows 8 operating systems.

There's Windows 8/Win32 and then there's Windows??/WinRT. Calling the latter Windows 8 is a mistake. The former is a continuation of the 20 year Windows brand. The latter is a fresh new start. It should have been called NewWindows 1.0. Or something 1.0.

WinRT might share a big chunk of the kernel and graphics subsystem with Win32 but the two APIs are incompatible and will remain incompatible forever. That alone warrants a semantic split. Win32 is to WinRT what the Imperial system is to the Metric System. They may share the basic concepts but they are so incompatible that using one system or the other is the very first decision architects have to make before starting a project.

When one forces a semantic merge of two incompatible systems confusion ensues and bad things happen, like NASA crashing a $125 million orbiter (Sep 30, 1999).

What is missing is some enterprise-focused client for mobile devices that doesn't care if it's connected to Windows 8.1 or some headless backend version. Microsoft is thankfully late (NOT invited) to the "boot to IE" party for mobile, but Windows as an OS requires sooo much overhead for what are basically single-use/single feature apps.

Paul has said, IIRC, that he'd love for Windows Phone to be absorbed into the OS division, and properly brought into the fold, so to speak. Certainly, moving it to WinRT for development would be good. And, as stated, having a unified app store would be ideal.

I'm also wondering why on earth Windows 8/RT doesn't make use of TellMe like Windows Phone does. Sort of boggling.

By Windows 9 cellphones will likely be powerful enough to run Windows in two modes. The regular phone mode similar to existing WP8 UI, and a docked mode where it has a mini-HDMI output (or something) that drives an external display with the existing Windows 8 (equivalent) UI.

If that is not the goal they are moving towards, I think they're making a mistake. From an enterprise perspective, giving an employee a phone integrated with Outlook, Lync, etc. that also functions as their work device would be compelling, even if the phone just functioned as a dumb terminal that connected to a virtual PC.

The concept of HSA programming environment is write once perform on many -efficient coding which is hardware agnostic. It is time to leave yesterday's programming model behind and face newgen programming and environment model -this is the beginning of the paradigm shift

AMD implemented, now control ALL consoles with HSA- Microsoft is the keeper of the compiler/programming tools

By Windows 9 cellphones will likely be powerful enough to run Windows in two modes. The regular phone mode similar to existing WP8 UI, and a docked mode where it has a mini-HDMI output (or something) that drives an external display with the existing Windows 8 (equivalent) UI.

If that is not the goal they are moving towards, I think they're making a mistake. From an enterprise perspective, giving an employee a phone integrated with Outlook, Lync, etc. that also functions as their work device would be compelling, even if the phone just functioned as a dumb terminal that connected to a virtual PC.

Neh. Why not use a cheap separate dump terminal instead of your phone? I don't want my phone to be hooked up to other devices; I want to pick it up any time and use it as a smart phone. The cloud will sync everything so just logging in to a terminal will be enough to have all my settings and apps.

I think people are missing an important point here. Unification would mean more than just behind-the-scenes APIs; it would also mean unifying the user interfaces. Other than the live tiles, WP8 has a *totally* different user interface from Win8. In addition, the app ecosystem is totally separate from that of Win8 (even if individual developers can publish their apps for both platforms, if they wish).

I'm really looking forward to a future Windows Phone that has live tiles and a consistent usability with Win8.

Dear God. I'm recoiling in horror at the idea of merging two fundamentally different platforms into one.

I'd actually like my OS to be designed for the hardware it's actually running upon. I don't use my phone like a desktop or vice-versa, and trying to unify the experience is simply going to do both of them badly. (I'm still smarting from Apple's attempt to push bits of iOS into MacOSX.)

There are all sorts of elements of Windows 8 / W8 Phone that can be used in common, but please, I don't need a single OS that is both a dessert topping and a floor wax.

October? What about the Haswell release in June?The Haswell chips and chipsets already started shipping to OEMs last week, even if the chipset needs to be redesigned, and Windows Blue apparently contain some specific Haswell code according to previous news. I doubt Microsoft will wait until October to refresh the Surface Pro, it would make more sense to plan the software refresh to release at the same time as the Haswell releases. Unless only the Haswell desktop processors release in June, and the mobile ones release later.

So, we're back to the annual unification rumors for Windows. Eventually, I'm hoping people will give up on this bit of vaporware and accept that Microsoft is incapable of unifying its various operating system offerings. It's been going on since Longhorn and will most likely continue on forever.

Even if they somehow unified Win8 and WP8, it's only reducing 2 of the 3 current OS flavors on the menu. What strikes me so odd is that, if this turns out to be more than speculation, they've managed to unify the desktop and phone versions rather than the phone and tablet versions.

If this is to happen, Microsoft *must* implement some sort of logical divergence with the UIs, ie.: during installation, it can auto-detect (with user confirmation) whether it's on a tablet, phone, laptop or desktop and set various defaults. If I'm on a desktop, I don't want there to be a hint of Metro without my explicit instruction to pull it up.

My desktop needs to be a desktop, not some glorified bullshit consumption platform.

I think people are missing an important point here. Unification would mean more than just behind-the-scenes APIs; it would also mean unifying the user interfaces.

It needn't.

Quote:

Other than the live tiles, WP8 has a *totally* different user interface from Win8. In addition, the app ecosystem is totally separate from that of Win8 (even if individual developers can publish their apps for both platforms, if they wish).

They're getting a bit more similar. Windows 8.1 will use a similar "slide the tiles out the way to see All Apps" that Windows Phone 8 does. It's also getting the small tile sizes. Baby steps, but I think sensible ones.

I wouldn't worry too much about whether they are merging the OSes or not, but more on the experience that you'll get. As long as they bring the best of both worlds together, I don't see a disadvantage with either option.

I'm really looking forward to a future Windows Phone that has live tiles and a consistent usability with Win8.

uhh, Windows Phone has had live tiles since the first version. Win 8 borrowed the concept from the phone. There are some differences in user interaction, but many have more to do with the different screen sizes than anything else.

Being able to have a single PC in my pocket is one of the few reasons that I would consider a Windows phone. I am already planning to make the Ubuntu phone my next phone purchase, assuming it works as seemingly as Canonical would like it to do so.

I can almost use my SIII as my only PC, but occasionally I just need a larger screen and keyboard to get things done. Admittedly my current needs are limited but most people don't need more power than their phone offers, especially starting next year when phone GPUs will offer XBox360 class performance and internal storage space of 64GB, with options for 128GB, becomes more common.

As with the story about 38% of internet use being performed on Windows XP machines, there is very little reason that most people shouldn't be able to connect their phone to a dock that would then automatically convert their phone into PC mode. Outside of content creation work most work can be performed on a multi-UI phone.

With Bluetooth and Wireless Video links there would be an ability to not even take the phone out of your pocket to get work done. Or to have a scenario where you walk from room to room and have auto syncing with screens all over your home. Obviously some people need 8-core powerhouses to get their work done but most people don't any longer. The phone in your pocket is likely as powerful as the average office PC was 8 years ago.

I'm really looking forward to a future Windows Phone that has live tiles and a consistent usability with Win8.

uhh, Windows Phone has had live tiles since the first version. Win 8 borrowed the concept from the phone. There are some differences in user interaction, but many have more to do with the different screen sizes than anything else.

Not really. Say you have an app that's running but suspended. On Windows 8, if you're on the Start Screen and tap the tile, it task switches to the app. This makes sense even though Windows 8 has a really convenient task switching interface which requires only a swipe. On the phone, this terminates the running instance and starts a new one. Not only is this behavior not obviously due to Windows Phone screens being smaller, but when you consider how much harder it is to fit a task switching interface onto a phone screen than it is a computer screen, it's pretty obvious that it's actually more imperative for Phone to have 8's behavior than it is for 8 to. It's that sort of thing that makes one wish that Phone was more consistent with 8. That and, as a shareholder, I'd rather both of Microsoft's OS' were billion sellers like desktop than both of them be such poor sellers that Microsoft doesn't even bother to release the numbers, like Phone.

I think people are missing an important point here. Unification would mean more than just behind-the-scenes APIs; it would also mean unifying the user interfaces. Other than the live tiles, WP8 has a *totally* different user interface from Win8. In addition, the app ecosystem is totally separate from that of Win8 (even if individual developers can publish their apps for both platforms, if they wish).

Whoa. Shows my ignorance of the WP8 platform (literally haven't touched it, yet). I thought all the things you just listed were a reality already.

Dear God. I'm recoiling in horror at the idea of merging two fundamentally different platforms into one.

I'd actually like my OS to be designed for the hardware it's actually running upon. I don't use my phone like a desktop or vice-versa, and trying to unify the experience is simply going to do both of them badly. (I'm still smarting from Apple's attempt to push bits of iOS into MacOSX.)

There are all sorts of elements of Windows 8 / W8 Phone that can be used in common, but please, I don't need a single OS that is both a dessert topping and a floor wax.

Interesting. My thought is that Windows is perhaps the ONLY platform that is truly "designed for the hardware it's running upon", in that it can scale from smartphone to cloud and support virtually any input paradigm with equal finesse.

I think people are missing an important point here. Unification would mean more than just behind-the-scenes APIs; it would also mean unifying the user interfaces. Other than the live tiles, WP8 has a *totally* different user interface from Win8. In addition, the app ecosystem is totally separate from that of Win8 (even if individual developers can publish their apps for both platforms, if they wish).

Whoa. Shows my ignorance of the WP8 platform (literally haven't touched it, yet). I thought all the things you just listed were a reality already.

No wonder WP8 isn't selling as well as I thought it would.

Actually, it is kinda funny:

Back in 2000+, MS tried to sell smartphones by giving them the same UI as their desktop OS. It kinda flopped because, you know, Touch and a phone don't have the same use cases and ergonomics as kb+ms at a desk.MS got the message. So now they're giving their Desktop the same UI as their phones, because, you know...

Being able to have a single PC in my pocket is one of the few reasons that I would consider a Windows phone. I am already planning to make the Ubuntu phone my next phone purchase, assuming it works as seemingly as Canonical would like it to do so.

I can almost use my SIII as my only PC, but occasionally I just need a larger screen and keyboard to get things done. Admittedly my current needs are limited but most people don't need more power than their phone offers, especially starting next year when phone GPUs will offer XBox360 class performance and internal storage space of 64GB, with options for 128GB, becomes more common.

As with the story about 38% of internet use being performed on Windows XP machines, there is very little reason that most people shouldn't be able to connect their phone to a dock that would then automatically convert their phone into PC mode. Outside of content creation work most work can be performed on a multi-UI phone.

With Bluetooth and Wireless Video links there would be an ability to not even take the phone out of your pocket to get work done. Or to have a scenario where you walk from room to room and have auto syncing with screens all over your home. Obviously some people need 8-core powerhouses to get their work done but most people don't any longer. The phone in your pocket is likely as powerful as the average office PC was 8 years ago.

amen to this - I think it'll be more apparent that the power of your phone is going to be sufficient when the ARM A57 chip designs get produced. As ARM says, the 64-bit A57 is 3 times as fast as the A15, which was 10 times as fast as the old A9 (which is the CPU most of us have in our phones today, SG3 included.

As ARM says "A Cortex-A57 processor-based smartphone, wirelessly connected to a screen, keyboard and mouse, delivers a full laptop experience that consumers receive from their typical laptop today.", so I hope to see just this happening. If MS isn't working towards the phone-is-your-desktop (like Canonical is) then they're going to miss out even more in the future.

That makes no sense to me. WP8 and Win8.x are designed from the core for completely different purposes. The most important trait and venue of WP8 (and every other mobile OS) is energy efficiency. OS designers do sacrifice a lot of other features for that purpose alone. A desktop OS on the other hand has to support as many different pieces and flavors of HW as possible. Merging and blending together these two different breeds would burden a lot of unnecessary work and constraints on the final product. It's furthermore hard to believe that the final OS would be so cleverly designed (=highly modular) that one can add and subtract arbitrary parts for optimization.Either I don't get it or there is some wishful thinking behind the story not based on any grounds.

I got the impression that when they are talking about merging, they are not talking about key APIs kernel pieces of the operating systems as those are already mostly there. The thing I thought they were alluding to was the divergence of the different underlying architectures that they are running on (x86 and ARM). The biggest difference between Win8 and WinPhone8 is the ability to run desktop applications built for Win32 and x86. Giving the developers the ability to compile their existing applications to ARM microcode might be the merged solution they are hinting at.

Being able to have a single PC in my pocket is one of the few reasons that I would consider a Windows phone. I am already planning to make the Ubuntu phone my next phone purchase, assuming it works as seemingly as Canonical would like it to do so.

I can almost use my SIII as my only PC, but occasionally I just need a larger screen and keyboard to get things done. Admittedly my current needs are limited but most people don't need more power than their phone offers, especially starting next year when phone GPUs will offer XBox360 class performance and internal storage space of 64GB, with options for 128GB, becomes more common.

As with the story about 38% of internet use being performed on Windows XP machines, there is very little reason that most people shouldn't be able to connect their phone to a dock that would then automatically convert their phone into PC mode. Outside of content creation work most work can be performed on a multi-UI phone.

With Bluetooth and Wireless Video links there would be an ability to not even take the phone out of your pocket to get work done. Or to have a scenario where you walk from room to room and have auto syncing with screens all over your home. Obviously some people need 8-core powerhouses to get their work done but most people don't any longer. The phone in your pocket is likely as powerful as the average office PC was 8 years ago.

amen to this - I think it'll be more apparent that the power of your phone is going to be sufficient when the ARM A57 chip designs get produced. As ARM says, the 64-bit A57 is 3 times as fast as the A15, which was 10 times as fast as the old A9 (which is the CPU most of us have in our phones today, SG3 included.

As ARM says "A Cortex-A57 processor-based smartphone, wirelessly connected to a screen, keyboard and mouse, delivers a full laptop experience that consumers receive from their typical laptop today.", so I hope to see just this happening. If MS isn't working towards the phone-is-your-desktop (like Canonical is) then they're going to miss out even more in the future.

This is exactly what I want too. I don't even need it to be wireless: if I can connect some sort of adapter to my phone that has two USB ports for mouse and keyboard and an HDMI port, I'd be perfectly happy with that as well. Heck, even if it was just Windows RT (considering it would run on ARM) it would still be pretty great.

While Canonical is on the right track, I think they're too small a player for this to make a splash. Of the big players, Microsoft is the only one currently able to provide this scenario within a reasonable timeframe considering how close their mobile and desktop OS has merged. This could give them a massive edge, if they made it happen. Which, considering their past, seems unlikely, but still.